GriefFall
by Simpli
Summary: A post Ending look at De Sardet from Greedfall.


**=} Grief-Fall {= **

**=} Kurt Disbelief {=**

The Palace felt more than a tomb, than it had ever before. Even when Constantine was fighting with the pains of the malichor, even when he had looked more death than alive, the dark blood making his veins stand out with pustules and welts forming on his pale flesh, he had still been … there. A small quip if nothing else, the flicker of his smile and even a shadow of the enthusiasm he had shown when first putting a foot onto Vasco's ship, the same enthusiasm and need to go out and shout into the world that had seen him climbing the walls of Serene all those years ago. But there wouldn't be anymore quips, no calls for his "fair cousin", no warm arms to embrace her in greetings and never again would she see his excited and marvelling expression when she detailed her travels around the island, recounted the mysteries of Teer Fradee she was unravelling with her group of companions and friends. Her hands clenched at that thought, grasping the cool metal between them, forcing her gaze downwards once more as guilt overcame her: how could she ever again think of these stories she had shared with him, think of the times when excitement had not yet turned into greed and fear not yet into the willingness to do whatever it takes just to stay alive?

"Green blood?"

Only dimly was she aware of the nickname spoken with a surprising tenderness for anyone who knew the man, only slowly did she become aware of the heavy gauntlet on her shoulder, the weight that was supporting instead of heavy weighting. Tilting her head lightly and noticing the tears that glistened between her eyelashes for the first time, De Sardet, Legate of the Congregation, niece to the Prince and cousins of Constantine D'Orsay, Governor of New Serene, looked up at the scar lined face of her families master-at-arms. Glancing down again her eyes blurred and slipped past the lacy collar and the heavy coat, before she hand on her shoulder shook her gently again, her vision focusing and her eyes rapidly blinking as she felt the lack of sleep, the bruised ribs and the numerous scratches and burns the last Guardian had brought to her as it shot rays of heat at when, when it wasn't trying to collapse the caves ceiling on top of her head.

"Kurt.", she stated simply, her voice a mere shadow of the silver-tongued rhetoric's she was known for, speeches that had changed the island and were going to change the world in the years to come. But right now her voice was as brittle as her whole posture, bruised and weakened from the last weeks, constant travels across the island, fighting with corrupted beasts and desperate debates with Governor of Hikmet. It had taken a toll to unite all five factions on the island, but even the Magocracy had allowed itself to be talked into "protecting the Lair of an Islander Demon", even if that reading was going to change surely as soon as the final years of St. Matheus on Teer Fradee were published. But this was not in her mind and neither was it in his, her former master-at-arms had loved to play the cold hearted mercenary, but for a captain of the Coin Guard he was both old fashioned and loyal and thus he was now at her side.

"It made me think of mother…", and she was painfully relieved she could still think of her as that and say it out aloud, her eyes grasping the cool metal between them tighter as tears once more spilled forward, her dried lips pressing hard against another and the burns on her cheek hurting as each shift of her mimic seemed to tear on them. But what was that pain compared to the dark reproaches she gave herself whenever thoughts came back to the woman she still saw, despite everything she had learned on this island, as her mother? She had given her child her blessing, she had wished for De Sardet to bring back a cure for a malichor, to heal "her people" and only know was she truly aware of the meanings hidden in that farewell. There was going to be a cure, not a wondrous remedy, not a miracle, but something to hope for, to safe those who were not yet afflicted. But even with this knowledge, her heart still ached when her memories returned to the day they departed from new Serene, the feelings of feather-light frail hands on her own gloves, of the empty eyes of her mother, ravaged by the Malichor and struck by pain that disallowed her to continue her life at court outside of her rooms. She had left her mother to die and It would be years before she was able to visit her grave again – if her uncle would ever let her return home.

"…I couldn't believe it when I saw the blood.", she remembers, she remembers the moment, the way the phial was glistening in the sun light, but the content was pitch black. She had pulled Constantine into her arms, begged of him to tell her that it was not his blood, that this was all just an misunderstanding, a cruel joke or anything but the death sentence on her only friend, the man she thought of as a brother. It had torn her apart when the malichor had begun to afflict him, her fears when he had begun to pale and appear more and more sickly suddenly bursting into heart wrenching realisation that there was only one outcome: that her beloved cousin would die blind, his body ravaged and each waking moment one of pain strong enough to purge any thought.

"…like a marionette set ablaze, consumed by fire…", she whispered, loud enough for Kurt to hear as she stared down, the metal between her hands unyielding, but the leather of her gloves creaking as she clutched it ever tighter. Fresh tears spilling from her eyes and dripping onto the ornate plate, running over the "golden eyes" as the islanders called them, washing away the dirt and dust and the specks of blood that had fallen upon it. No rent, no broken plates, no sign of gunfire or heavy impact scarring the ornate plate – one she hadn't even known that he had owned it or taken along till he had presented it to her at this cursed night.

"This was supposed to be his chance to step out from his father's shadow, to shape something that was going to be his own.", the strangled dead version of a laugh slipped from her throat, feeling as if it was going to tear if just another sob broke through it, but she had to…she had to talk, she had to say something, she couldn't just leave him in silence, could she? "He had so many plans, he had sketched plans for an Opera and a new harbour tower he wanted the Nauts to erect before the cost – he had even asked an artisan to design a plate for the gatehouse as soon as the city wall is finished…"

Projects, so many projects, parchments and books, notes and memories of bright days, of walks around the ever-growing city, of surveyors and architects at court. Better days, sunny days, days when his smile could lighten a room and his ideas could energize a crowd to see the wonders he could describe with their own imagination. Hours spent in the wilderness, mapping the island for lumber, for stone, for iron and all the other materials New Serene would need to grow, to build, to become a new jewel, not only for the Congregation, but for them both – for him the most.

She only need to look up to see the door to his office, to imagine him bursting out of it at the mention of her name by the guard, his hands stained with ink and a whole entourage behind him, fluttering between indignation and his own brand of infectious enthusiasm that caught everyone left in his wake. His bright eyes, his easy smile and a welcoming that did not mind whatever state her latest expedition had left her in and took whatever political implications she brought back home in stride. He might have been whimsical, his interest fluttering, and she had needed to pull him out of the fire by the tails of his coat more often than not, but by the Light: no one who had known him could say that he wasn't brilliant. Brilliant and thus ever harder hit upon knowing that his parents lived for the Congregation more than for him, ever knowing that his father was the Prince first and foremost and his mother the Prince's wife first and foremost.

She was aware that Kurt was staying by her side, their oldest friend, a loyal friend and the person she owed the lessons that saved her from death in all the forms that were so easy to walk into on Teer Fradee. He had been their teacher, but here she was, while Constantine…

"I just can't believe it.", she whispered lightly, her voice barely carrying through the candle lit room, the smell of blood and gunpowder still in her nose, her coat singed and her sword was most likely stuck who-knows where up on the volcano…but it just hurt so much to care, it hurt to stay, it hurt to lie down and rest as Siora and Petrus tried to tell her, she just had to come. To see with her own eyes, to hold and finally believe. By now her hands were clutching the gauntlet so tightly that they must have been as ashen as her face, tears having fallen onto the chest that would never rise again, to breath in this strange new air, to take breath before flowing into an light quip or into a soft laugh.

"Neither can I Green blood. He wasn't that kind of boy."

No he hadn't been, he had been disgusted by the intrigues at home, he had dejected those that would do everything for his father just to gain a hint more of power, of those who would give away what ought to have been dear to them for just another successful contract. Her cousin had seemed…. a world apart. No one who had ever been on a bar tour with him, would have called him pure by any means, too large the number of girls that had fallen for him, too large the number of gamblers and thugs that had spent the nights with him on their way from one drinking hole to another. And she had been there, she had been there for so much, the good nights, the interesting nights and those which were simply the worst ideas…

…or what she had thought could have been the worst ideas he could have come up with.

But that had been their youth, a single year away from home, away from Serene already made that time feel like it was an age apart. And today she knew better, she had walked over blood strewn battlefields, she had fought against monsters that were once human, fought against treachery and corruption, faced the worst excesses of her own people and visited more sacred grounds and tombs of the natives that any sane person ought to have sought out. Today she knew that things could be worse than you could imagine in your worst nighmare and for the first time her hand left the gauntlet and grasped the hand on her shoulder instead, squeezing it lightly as she looked up to her friend, a forlorn smile spreading on her lips:

"He didn't use your lessons…"

For there was no hit struck against the ornate plate armour, there was no impact from a Warhammer, nor was there the blast of gunpowder or explosive potion. Not even magic had begun to melt it on his frame. The armour was pristine, only dust and blood taking from its shine in the candles. His face was pale, but the feverish glance of the last weeks was gone, set as if it was sleeping, the lines of the malichor and the lines of the bonding lessened in his darkened room, the crown of roots pushing through his grayed hair more majestic than alien as her hand ran through his hair a last time.

She is De Sardet, Legat of the Merchant Congregation, niece of the Prince by Adoption – and the woman who stabbed her cousin with the dagger that he had offered to her together with an apotheosis at his side.

She sits at the bed of her cousin, her dear cousin, her fair cousin – and she holds his hand knowing that nothing she could do would bring him back, that there was going to be no last miraculous cure, no hidden remedy or magical spell to breath live back into her poor mad cousin.

She loved Constantin D'Orsay like a brother and placed a last kiss on his forehead, in death finally freed from the fever. He had been the last she could call family in more than name and he had died with his own dagger buried in his belly – a dagger guided by her hand.

She is Legat De Sardet, she broke the Ordo Luminis, she brought an uneasy piece between the islanders and the Alliance, she had crowned a high king and safeguarded the secrets of the Nauts.

She had killed her Cousin to safeguard the Old and the New World.

And now she could only weep.

**=}+{= **


End file.
